Where the WORLD MEETS

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/01/2012 (5250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A mini United Nations, is buzzing with activity seven days a week at 460 Notre Dame Ave., just one minute from The Exchange District. There are no lights flashing above the sign for Dino’s Grocery Mart, and people often miss it on the busy one-way stretch. The trick is to start looking left in the block before Salter Street.

The first thing new customers notice is the background dance music — reggae, Indian, African, upbeat world music. Sometimes you’ll see people rocking their groceries to the music in the checkout line.

“We have customers from the Caribbean, Central and South America, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and many parts of Africa. And lately, a lot of people are coming from Bhutan,” says Dinu Tailor, who runs the store with daughter Neeti Varma and son-in-law Rajan Varma.

“We sell every kind of food except Chinese and Vietnamese (because those customers are so well-served by Dong Thai Chinese-Vietnamese grocery across the street).”

His first name is actually Dinu but he felt Dino was a better business name for his international store. He came to Canada from India in 1974 and knows what it means to be a new immigrant. He says people tell him they “feel at home” inside his store. For immigrants who come to Canada, finding Dino’s Grocery store (which is celebrating its 30th anniversary) is a big comfort. Now they can find most foods familiar from their home country, including unusual fresh-produce items.

Dino’s is much more than a grocery store; it’s a meeting place. Staff often see hugs and surprise meetings in the aisles. “One day I saw two girls hugging each other and crying,” says Tailor. “They were in Ethiopia together. Then there were political problems and they went to different countries and they didn’t know they had both ended up in Winnipeg! You feel so good about that kind of stuff.”

Tailor stocks everything imaginable from around the world, using big international distributors in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Check out the bags of different flours piled deep, every kind of bean, and a large selection of Basmati and other rices, plus big bins of legumes. Kids ogle the whole wall of sodas and fancy juices like guanabana, passion fruit, tamarind and the popular drink LLB (lemon, lime and bitters) enjoyed in Trinidad & Tobago.

Naturally, Dino’s offers the wildest array of hot sauces in the city, including Scotch Bonnet hot pepper sauce. “It’s a big favourite for Jamaicans,” says Varma. They also bring in a whole department of frozen staples (such as fishes, veggies) and delicacies for their customers. Tropical ice creams like grapenut and coconut are sublime finishes at the end of a meal. Then there’s the fresh produce area, including shelves of giant yams and other root vegetables looking strange and hairy to the Canadian eye.

Getting it all together is a big job. “I spend two to three hours a day just ordering,” says Varma. He orders for Dino’s main store in Winnipeg but also ships to places such as Flin Flon and Thompson, where immigrants have gone to work and are longing for their familiar foods.

A big problem is getting fresh vegetables and breads and other perishables all the way across Canada at the right temperatures to keep them from spoiling. For instance, African yams come from a very warm climate and need to be kept warmer than some other foods on the way to market. “If the food goes onto the truck in perfect shape and arrives spoiled, We pay the distributor, but not the trucking firm,” says Varma. It’s a big concern in freezing weather.

So how did this exotic grocery store take root in Winnipeg? Though Tailor was an accountant in India, and continued that work in Canada, the accountancy company that employed him closed, and he bought a corner store on Ellice thinking he would do some accounting in his spare time. To his amazement, the little store took off and he found a medium-sized space on Notre Dame. He ended up renting out the space on either side of him as well, to expand to the current 10,000 sq-ft size, with parking spaces along the east side of the building.

To make inquiries about products available at Dino’s, call 942-1526.